Competency Modeling in the 21st Century

Competency modeling is a popular concept in the business world, with a growing number of organizations implementing competency-based methods and many practitioners extolling the benefits of competency-based approaches. Despite its modern reputation, the concept of competencies and competency modeling is not new: Harvard psychologist David McClelland is often credited with introducing the term in 1973 (McClelland, 1973). Interest in the concept took off rapidly after that time, with a survey in the 1990s revealing that up to 75% of organizations used competency-based methods to inform at least one human resources function (Cook & Bernthal, Reference Cook and Bernthal1998). Over 40 years after the introduction of the term, competency modeling and the use of competencies to describe the characteristics necessary for effective performance continues to maintain relative prominence.

Perhaps the most important reason for the rise of competency modeling was the economic, demographic, and technological changes that ushered in a revolution of globalization and rapid innovation. In this business environment, as today, organizations needed to continually evolve in order to survive. Consequently, the jobs within these organizations also had to continually evolve, and the need arose for a method of describing job requirements that could accommodate this unpredictability. Traditional approaches, which usually focused on minutely describing the tasks performed in a job, were too inflexible. As noted by Neubert and colleagues (Reference Neubert, Mainert, Kretzschmar and Greiff2015), this renders these methods insufficient for capturing the intricacies of many modern jobs.

What Neubert and colleagues (Reference Neubert, Mainert, Kretzschmar and Greiff2015) did not address, though, is that there is already a viable alternative in place: Competency modeling's inherent adaptability allows it to easily accommodate complex, changeable positions and the nonroutine and interactive tasks required therein (Rodriguez, Patel, Bright, Gregory, & Gowing, Reference Rodriguez, Patel, Bright, Gregory and Gowing2002). Indeed, the two “new” skills outlined by the authors—complex problem solving and collaborative problems solving—are easily represented in a typical competency model. Not only does this eliminate the need to incorporate yet more constructs in the performance literature but it also means that both scientists and practitioners already have the capabilities necessary to assess the characteristics comprising these competencies. These may be 21st century skills, but competency modeling allows us to conceptualize and measure them without issue.

Background and Benefits of Competency Modeling

Despite their popularity, there is still some disagreement among researchers and practitioners as to what is actually meant when one speaks of competencies. In fact, there are entire articles devoted to pinning down the nuances of competency modeling. Because of this, and in recognition that not all readers may be familiar with the concept of competency modeling, I believe it is appropriate to begin my campaign in support of competencies with a brief examination into the background on this topic.

In establishing a formal definition of competencies, I have chosen to focus primarily on Campion, Fink, Ruggeberg, Phillips, and Oldman's (Reference Campion, Fink, Ruggeberg, Carr, Phillips and Odman2011) definition, both for its relative simplicity and for its merging of common aspects of other definitions. According to this definition, competencies are combinations of knowledge, skills, abilities, and other individual differences (KSAOs) that are necessary for performance in a given job or job family (Campion et al., Reference Campion, Fink, Ruggeberg, Carr, Phillips and Odman2011). This idea of competencies being combinations of KSAOs is, arguably, one of the reasons that they are so applicable to modern jobs. Competencies describe, at a practical and measurable level, what is required of an organization's human resources, and the approach taken stands in contrast to more traditional approaches to understanding job requirements, which focus primarily on discrete tasks and traits. Although the competency approach also seeks to identify what is most important for performance in a job, the focus is ultimately on the person and the functional combinations of characteristics that he or she must possess in order to do well (Rodriguez et al., Reference Rodriguez, Patel, Bright, Gregory and Gowing2002).

Another factor that separates competency-based approaches from traditional approaches is that the former frequently serve a more strategic, forward-looking role. Competencies are typically developed in a top-down fashion (Campion et al., Reference Campion, Fink, Ruggeberg, Carr, Phillips and Odman2011), with individuals at higher levels of the organization identifying a set of competencies to represent the strategic goals of the organization. In such cases, these strategic competencies are selected so as to be in alignment with the company's vision and mission, and each job within the organization is then represented by varying combinations of these competencies. This allows jobs to be described in terms of the broad capabilities that could be required, as opposed to just describing the basic tasks in the job. Such a future-oriented strategic tactic is simply not possible with traditional approaches, given their bottom-up focus to describing jobs.

This represents yet another significant reason why competency modeling can be so useful for describing modern jobs: Not only can competencies effectively encompass currently existing 21st century skills but they also can be used to describe and define jobs that do not yet exist or jobs that may change frequently in terms of task content. Neubert and colleagues (Reference Neubert, Mainert, Kretzschmar and Greiff2015) noted that there is “a vital need to react to changes in work requirements in a proactive way, aligned with the strategic vision” (p. 12) of the organization, and competency-based approaches naturally fulfill this need.

Finally, an acknowledged benefit of competency modeling is that the resulting model can serve as a human resources roadmap, guiding and aligning the human resources functions throughout the employee life cycle (Rodriguez et al., Reference Rodriguez, Patel, Bright, Gregory and Gowing2002). Competencies can serve as the foundation for a wide range of human resources decisions and processes, from selection and training to development and succession planning. Ultimately, this means that competency modeling can promote consistency in the human resources life cycle, ensuring that a company is reliably endorsing and encouraging the same characteristics in its human resources. This is squarely in line with the focal article authors’ call for a method supporting the human-capital needs of organizations.

Competency Modeling: A Hypothetical Example

Consider the example of the mechatronics engineer used throughout the focal article. A variety of “modern” skills are identified and discussed by the authors as being important for such a position, including identifying and responding to problems in a team-based environment, learning and adjusting to complex systems, and displaying creativity. The authors indicate that researchers and practitioners do not currently have a way of conceptualizing these skills in a functional way, and because of this, they argue for the creation of new constructs—complex problem solving and collaborative problem solving—to address these. However, each of these could easily be encompassed in competencies. In a general, a competency model such as Bartram's (Reference Bartram2005) Great 8, for instance, could be subsumed within the broad competencies of “Creating and conceptualizing” and “Analyzing and interpreting.” Bartram (Reference Bartram2005) even identified personality traits closely linked to each of these eight general competencies, facilitating assessment of the competencies identified as important.

It is possible that an organization may look at the above example and argue that the identified competencies are too broad to really describe a job or job family of interest. This is not actually problematic, because the flexibility of competency modeling means that the level of focus can be adjusted as needed in order to fit with strategic goals. A tailored competency model could group these tasks, and others, in more specific competencies such as “Works as part of a team,” “Embraces creativity,” and “Adjusts to changing demands,” all of which could be measured with existing personality-focused assessments.

An important point to address is that competencies do not necessitate a sole focus on simple personality-related skill and ability factors. Indeed, competency models can incorporate mechanical, electrical, and other “hands on” skills while also retaining the emphasis on situational factors. For a job such as a mechatronics engineer, any researcher or practitioner would need to take into account that the modern skills of the position are naturally reliant, to some extent, on basic skills that are static across time. That is to say, performance is both a function of fundamental, unchanging skills and knowledge as well as the cognitive or personality characteristics that allow for the translation of these skills to different settings. Neubert et al. (Reference Neubert, Mainert, Kretzschmar and Greiff2015) point out that, for instance, a mechatronics engineer would need to be able to “analyze, merge, and assemble mechanical, electrical, and electronic components of different generations and within unforeseeably alternating interactions.”

The implication here is that because the individual must be able to apply his/her hard skills in a fluid manner, an entirely new modern skill has emerged for this job. The further implication is that existing personality, cognitive ability, and skills measures will be insufficient to assess this new skill. As a practitioner, I would argue that this does not represent a new and modern skill but instead represents a situation in which competencies can interface with hard skills to produce a strategic picture of a position in which change is a core component. If a client came to me with the desire to understand such a mechatronics engineering position in terms of competencies, I would likely counsel the client to continue the use of skills assessments (as it is critical to ensure that the core skill capabilities are present) while also layering in an assessment, or multiple assessments, aimed specifically at understanding the competencies relating to applying these skills in a fluctuating environment. If, for instance, we consider the competency “Adapts to changing demands” to be essential here, there are dozens of assessments that tap in to various aspects of this competency: Adaptability and flexibility, creativity, innovation, openness, and initiative are just some of the characteristics that could comprise this competency, and all can be measured using presently available assessments.

Competency Modeling to the Rescue

In my role as a practitioner, I have had the opportunity to work with clients who varied greatly in terms of their industry, job types, job levels, and other such characteristics. What I can say with certainty is that all of the jobs I have encountered, be they entry level or executive level, have required that nonroutine and interactive tasks be performed at some point or another. On the prevalence of these tasks in today's workplace, then, Neubert, Mainert, Kretzschmar, and Greiff and I can wholeheartedly agree. Where I distinctly disagree with the authors, though, is in their twin assertions that “modern” constructs are needed to represent these requirements and that new assessment methods will be needed to measure them. I have yet to encounter a client for whom a well-planned competency model was insufficient to describe even the most novel aspects of the job. It is the very nature of competency modeling to be flexible, functional, and forward-looking. Rather than reinventing the proverbial wheel by introducing new labels, I would encourage both researchers and practitioners to employ competency modeling as a way to describe and understand the human-capital requirements of modern jobs and job families and to guide assessment efforts.